Canadian Poets Series #39 : Laurie D. Graham

Laurie D. Graham [photo credit: Jason Graham] grew up in Treaty 6 Territory, outside of amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton, Alberta, and she now lives in Tkaronto/Toronto, Treaty 13 and Williams Treaties Territory, where she is a poet, the publisher of Brick magazine, and senior editor for Knopf Canada and Alchemy. Her maternal family comes from east-central Alberta by way of Ukraine and Poland, and her paternal family comes from central Saskatchewan by way of Northern Ireland and Scotland. She has about a century of history in Canada.

Laurie’s first book, Rove [see a review by Danielle Janess at Arc Poetry Magazine; see a review by Shelley A. Leedahl at SaskBooks; see a review by Michael Greenstein at The Malahat Review]. was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second and third books, Settler Education [see a review by Klara Du Plessis at Montreal Serai; a review by Candace Fertile at Quill and Quire; a review by Megan Callahan at Vallum magazine] and Fast Commute [see a mention via CBC Books; see my review of such here], were both nominated for Ontario’s Trillium Award for Poetry. Her fourth book, Calling It Back to Me [see a review by Bryn Robinson at The Seaboard Review of Books; see my review here], was published in spring 2026 by McClelland & Stewart. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, won the Thomas Morton Poetry Prize, and appeared in the Best Canadian Poetry anthologies. Her work encompasses ecopoetry, the poetics of the Anthropocene, decolonization, the long poem, and articulations of non-Indigenous responsibility for colonial harms.

Laurie is also an editor of poetry and prose with two decades of experience working with literary journals in Canada. She has edited the work of writers the world over, including Anne Carson, Michael Ondaatje, Louise Erdrich, Sharon Olds, Sheila Heti, Karen Solie, Jan Zwicky, Obi Nwakanma, Don DeLillo, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Canisia Lubrin, Ocean Vuong, and many others. She also helps steer the Literary Magazines Canada Collective and is on the advisory board of Oskana Poetry and Poetics at the University of Regina Press.